"What do you mean, you don't know?" Lydia snaps in her best judgmental voice. "We call the police, obviously. I mean, no offense, but you're just a bodyguard."
Stiles' first instinct is to come to Derek's defense- he's the reason Stiles is still sane, or at least, still fooling the general public into believing he's sane, and Stiles'd be lost without him- but in this particular situation, he kind of sees her point.
"Right," Derek says, like it hadn't even occurred to him. Stiles looks at him worriedly.
"Derek?" His throat constricts in that strangling Dad is crying/Derek is scared/the world is ending twist as he goes from a loud, exaggerated humor freakout to a silent, completely internal Blue Screen of Death. Sure, Derek's job gives him plenty of downtime and not many actually dangerous situations to handle, but he knows how to handle those situations. Stiles inhales through his nose. "Derek, hey, look at me," he says, because the man's face has gone frighteningly vacant. "What's going on?"
"I'm fine," Derek says, snapping back to himself, grabbing his phone from his pocket and dialing. "Stay away from the windows. Nobody step on the glass. Actually, everyone should head to a room with no windows-"
"The rec room," Stiles suggests.
"Everyone should head to the rec room," Derek agrees, "and stay there until-" he cuts off as someone answers his call. "Go!" he urges, and they troop off obediently, Allison still slightly stunned, Lydia looking suspiciously at Derek, and Scott grabbing Stiles' arm to drag him along when he doesn't join them on his own.
"I'm staying with Derek," Stiles insists. "Last time I checked, he's not wearing a bulletproof vest either."
"You're impossible," Scott groans, and lets Allison pull him down the hall. "If you die I get your Camaro!"
"If I die you get me haunting your ass until vengeance has been done!" Stiles calls back at him. "And Derek gets the Camaro, you get his jeep!"
"Shut up," Derek hisses, covering the phone with his hand and glaring."Nobody is touching my jeep."
"I swear you love that thing more than me," Stiles says, because if he sees Derek cry, the world will definitely end, so he needs to steer this conversation away from his hypothetical death, now.
"Shut up," Derek says again, and Stiles says, trying a smirk, "Dude. I know you love me more. Obviously. I'm just that awesome." He bounces his eyebrows, wiggles his hips goofily. Thanks to his hours at the gym and Bobby's vicious workouts, the movements don't set off any kind of minor natural disaster.
"Damn right," Derek says, tells the phone, "I'll be right with you," and puts it down to pull Stiles close to his chest. They don't separate until their lips are swollen, bruised purple; until Derek, ever the professional, remembers the phone on the table, picks up, and says, "You still with me?"
He has to call back.
Paparazzi show up before the police do; the place explodes with the fireworks of flashbulbs, with reporters yelling, Stiles! What happened? Stiles! Will this affect the next season of Hard Truths? Stiles! Do the police have any leads? Stiles! How are you feeling after this traumatic event? Stiles! Is Jessica Evans a suspect? Stiles! How is Derek handling all of this? Stiles! Is it true that you and Derek have been considering adoption? Stiles! Stiles! Stiles! Stiles! Stiles!
Stiles is really starting to hate the sound of his own name.
They're fucking inescapable; even actual news reporters are camped out in droves outside his shattered window. He's no longer a puff piece; now he's true crime. Assuming he doesn't die, Victoria, his terrifying but skilled publicist, is gonna love this. Hard Truths is trending on Twitter, along with his name and #WeSupportStilesAndDerek, which apparently started as one teen's reaction to a homophobic idiot who seems to think God goes around shooting through LGBT people's windows, and escalated as his fans got wind of the conflict and spread the tag like wildfire.
Stiles' fans are very intense and a little bit terrifying, but he's gotta admit, it's flattering. Except the "fans" who hate Derek. They can fuck right off. If Stiles could actually be honest on his twitter (he got it to stay in touch with his fans, pimp his work, and follow costars and comedians, but Victoria watches it like a hawk for possible awkward miscommunications), he'd tell them direct to their handles: You're not a fan, and you can fuck off and go die in a fire. Derek's got a twitter too- part of his job is online monitoring of Stiles' fans, making sure there aren't more Jessicas waiting to attack- and that means he sees all the crap the "haters" write about him. The thought of Derek reading through their vitriol makes Stiles see red. Derek won't mention it, but Stiles knows it stings- like a million disapproving in-laws, only crazier, and more creative with Photoshop. Some fans, though, have actually created supportive sites for the bodyguard: some revolving around his and Stiles' relationship, others around his body, which Stiles understands completely. If he didn't live with the man, he'd probably be one of them. (He still is, in many ways. [Cue cheesy 80's guitar track, cut to sex montage]) Derek is less understanding about the sites; they freak him out in a way not many things do, which makes Stiles reflexively judgmental about them. He'd say that fans are better than haters, no matter how crazy, but: Jessica. Fucking Jessica, man.
Stiles has, however, gotten Danny to set up a bunch of sockpuppet spam accounts that send any twitter user who tweets Derek hate (yeah, that's right, people actually tag him in their obvious pleas for attention, and why is Stiles even surprised, seriously) pictures of puppies, videos of Rick Astley's less famous hits, a very annoying but ultimately harmless computer virus, and a screen saver that reads, I'm A Very Sad Individual. Please Give Me A Hug.
Also, Stiles may have an anonymous account from which he writes angry but witty defenses of his man, like he's a random fan. (Dude, get a life, said one asshole in response to his essay on why Derek was not "turning Stiles into a pussy." Stiles groaned at the screen and muttered, This is my life, you giant bag of dicks, but he obviously couldn't write that, so.)
He may be a little bit obsessed.
After consulting with the LAPD, Victoria, Lydia, Erica, and the head of press at Universal, Stiles and Derek pack some suitcases and take a flight to Stiles' dad's house. Beacon Hills is a cozy little gated community where all the picket fences are white and there's always a pie cooling on the windowsill and nothing terrible ever happens, like Dad having a heart attack and dying alone while Stiles was busy telling Jay Leno how great it was working with the absolutely hilarious Jackson Whittemore, who definitely hadn't fed Us Weekly "shocking claims" that Stiles' nervous tics were symptoms of his speed addiction. Like Dad's body lying on the kitchen floor for god knows how long because no one was fucking there to check on him.
Stiles and Derek flew in for the funeral. They didn't touch the house. Stiles couldn't.
He puts up an almighty protest, what the eager paps would call a diva meltdown, a temper tantrum, a nervous fit, before going quiet and blinking his eyes clear and saying, "Fine."
Of course Derek chooses that moment to clock out again, so the two of them are twin statues, drawn and pale and inspiring concern all around. And these five don't do concerned. It interferes with their brand of crisp, confident, and unshakable. Stiles has heard Lydia's lecture on how quickly women get labeled "emotional" enough times to repeat it back to her (He's done that, actually, with a number of funny inflections, trying to cheer her through the off/on/off Lydia/Jackson clusterfuck. It was a riveting performance. A dazzling one-man show. No roses thrown at the stage, but it got her smiling, which was the point, so. Five stars. Two thumbs up. Buy your tickets now, etc, etc.), so seeing her go from I See All I Know All Don't Even Think About It, to Lydia, who wants to talk softly about thoughts and feelings, is a little jarring. But the real shocker is Victoria, she of iron spine and fire and ice and a glare that will absolutely knock you on your ass, looking closely at the two of them and saying, "Have you boys been sleeping?" sounding eerily like Stiles' mother. Which- there are literally no two people more different than Victoria and Stiles' mom. Case in point? Victoria, alive and breathing. Stiles' mom, long dead. (You'd think it stops hurting, more than ten years later. You'd be wrong.) And maybe Stiles'll start sleeping when people stop trying to kill him, or when Derek actually lets him in, because he's too quiet, and he's too tired, and Stiles feels like he's losing him, and he doesn't know what to do. He's running out of tactics, and if Lydia was commentating on the state of his relationship now, it would probably be something along the lines of, "This is just depressing. He's obviously going to leave you, possibly right now. You really screwed this one up. Say your goodbyes and call it a day, honey, because that's a wrap on Stiles and Derek."
And on top of all that, Stiles is going to be spending the foreseeable future in the house where his dad died alone, hopefully not dying himself, hopefully getting this giant lump of terrible over with before Thursday, when he's been booked by Jimmy Kimmel to do a ten-minute interview and show a clip from his new comedy movie, My Girl Stacy. He actually likes how this movie turned out, and he actually likes Jimmy Kimmel, and he actually likes his costars (Isaac Lahey as Jared, his character's best friend, and Allison Argent as Stacy, the girl that Ben and Jared realize is dating both of them). Promoting this movie should be easy. Maybe fun, even. Assuming he isn't dodging a storm of bullets, or doing the taping without Derek. Assuming he isn't dead, and Derek isn't dead, and someone else Stiles cares about isn't dead. Scott's got two weeks of location shoots in Venice for his new romantic dramedy, or he'd be on the flight too, and Stiles would have something to do besides try to get Derek to open up and, failing that, get spectacularly wasted on tiny bottles of $5000 whiskey. Derek, of course, always the professional, turns it down, which means Stiles is a sad drunk in front of a sober person and no one else, which makes it about five billion times more pathetic. Miraculously, Stiles manages to keep from slurring, "When're you gonna leave me?" and gripping at Derek's shirt with his fists, but he does cry about his dad, his mom, Scott's near-death experience, and how all humans are mortal, isn't that fuckin' horrible? 'S like, things are going good, s-so they, they shake the snow globe till there's snow over everything. And it's not even real snow, Derek, it's glitter, okay, and glitter is not gay because gay means happy! And, and glitter is shit. And why don't I know anything about your family, do you even have a family, are you even a real person, am I even a real person, hey look Derek I'm having an exishtenshul crisheshhhh, oh my god I love you so musch...
It's not pretty. Luckily, he doesn't remember most of it, and wakes up squashed against Derek in his childhood bedroom with the kind of brain-blasting hangover only $5000 whiskey can provide, and presses his face against Derek's chest because he can still do that for now, and because the guy obviously carried Stiles into bed from the tarmac without waking him, and that is both impressive and sexy as fuck. Also possibly humiliating if the paps pair it with the break-up story, but Stiles makes a mental note to have Erica scour the internet for pictures, just in case Stiles ever gets to put his proposal scrapbook to good use after all. Right, okay: vomiting. "If I could just vomit I'd feel so much better," said some bit character on a random episode of 'Til Death, and truer words have never been spoken. Stiles climbs over the protective cave Derek has formed around Stiles with his body- and screw him for making Stiles love him so much when he's going to leave him, the absolute bastard- and staggers off to the bathroom to puke his guts out. Everything was so good at once. And now everything is so awful all at once. Everything evens out in the end, he thinks, leaning against the toilet, eyes streaming. Dynamic equilibrium.
He wipes his mouth and gags into the abyss some more. When it's clear this headache isn't going anywhere, vomit or no vomit, he gets up, cleans up his face, gargles Listerine, spits, and curls back in place with Derek again, arm over his eyes.
He wakes up to the smell of smoke and thinks, Dad, breakfast is burning.
Then he says, "Dad-" and that's all it takes for him to remember, and the weight of it thuds quietly in his chest, and his headache is back.
And the house definitely smells like smoke. Sharper now, actually. Stiles nudges Derek. "Dude, did you make me a greasy hangover breakfast? Cuz all those boyfriend points are gonna go to waste if you burn down the house."
But Derek's still out like a guy with three strikes, and he hasn't been sleeping for days, so Stiles kisses his sweaty forehead and musses his dark, damp bed-head hair and climbs over him again, careful not to wake him up.
The smell has gone from a thin bitter edge on the air to something sharp enough to make Stiles' eyes water, but he pushes onwards.
The kitchen is on fire. The kitchen stinks of gasoline, and it is on fire. The house is on fire. Stiles' dad's house is on fire.
Derek.
Stiles is off like a racehorse at the starting pistol, barely breathing, shaking Derek awake and dragging him outside and across the street, where he hugs him close and dials Beacon Hills' fire department with unsteady fingers. He's in his boxers, he realizes idly, and Derek's in briefs and a t-shirt Stiles bought him. Again, Stiles feels a warm rush of affection towards Derek, and hates him for being everything Stiles could ever want and leaving him, and holds him closer anyway. Derek is stiff in his arms, face blank and glassy-eyed, eyebrows drawn together. He's unresponsive, empty worse than ever. Stiles could cry. He very nearly does, but he's holding them up right now, and he needs to just keep doing that. Keep breathing, keep holding Derek up. So he breathes, and he doesn't think about Dad's house barbequing across the street, every last trace of him blackened and burned and gone. He doesn't think about how Derek is going to leave him. He doesn't think about someone trying to kill him, to ruin every good part of his life. He doesn't think.
He holds Derek, and he breathes, and he breathes, and he breathes.
When the firefighters take axes to his childhood home, he just presses a kiss into Derek's stubbly neck, and doesn't look, doesn't think.
After they put the thing out, when it's black-eyed and broken and unrecognizable, a firewoman tells Stiles how it started. Arson. Fucking arson. Someone tried to burn Dad's house down while they slept. Stiles could have died. Derek could have-
Don't think, don't think, but he's running out of denial. He thanks the firefighters and thinks, Action. Breathe, just breathe and do something.
"Waffles," he says, though he's never been less hungry. (Breakfast is comfort food. Breakfast is "Your mother's going in for some tests." It's "Dad, I think- Hypothetically, from a PR standpoint, right, say there was this teen actor, and he realized, uh, that maybe-" "Neil Patrick Harris. He lived proud but private, and when he knew he had a good thing going, a staying kind of thing, his publicist made a few calls and he went on Ellen. From a hypothetical professional standpoint, of course. And, from a personal standpoint, I love you and I'll love anyone you love. Except Heather. Your cat and I have a very tumultuous relationship. Love doesn't enter into it.") "I feel like waffles. And bacon. Lots of bacon." He feels like vomiting, and crying, and curling up into a ball and giving up, maybe all at once. "You wanna drive?" Too late, he realizes he left the keys in the house.
Derek makes a noncommittal sound and doesn't move, so Stiles scrapes his palm down his boyfriend's back and says, "We're fine. We'll be fine. We're gonna eat breakfast, and we're gonna figure out what the fuck is going on, and we are gonna be fine."
Stiles rents out a little family b&b for breakfast. Over omelets, bacon, and huge stacks of chocolate-chip pancakes (that Stiles knows will mean a hell of a workout with Bobby, but fuck it, someone is trying to murder him, his dad is dead and his house is half-barbequed, Stiles can eat a big breakfast for once), Stiles tries every trick he knows to get Derek to laugh, or smile, or, god, just talk to him. Something.
Derek barely touches his food, and when Stiles runs out of ideas and sinks his head into his hands, Derek says, "I. I can't do this."
Stiles' head snaps up. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Derek glares at his pancakes. "I thought. But. And now, you. I can't-"
This should have been indecipherable, but Stiles has been on edge, waiting for this moment for days. That doesn't make it any easier to take.
"You're trying to tell me," Stiles clarifies, "that this isn't working out. We're not-" He closes his eyes, lets out a long shaky breath. "Derek. Someone set my dad's house on fire today, I can't-" and this is it, this is the moment they've all been waiting for. The last time Stiles had a panic attack, the phone had slipped from his hands and his dad was dead and then Derek was around him, helping him breathe, and he was sobbing into his boyfriend's collar. And now Derek is just-
And he can't breathe, and it is so goddamn stupid that this still happens to him. But someone is trying to kill him, and his boyfriend is leaving. And his bodyguard is-
"Someone's trying to kill me," he says shakily when he catches his breath, because at least Derek isn't enough of an asshole to leave while Stiles is still gasping for air, "Someone shot at me and tried to burn me alive in the house where my dad died alone and you are my boyfriend and you are my bodyguard and you are leaving."
"No one is trying to kill you," Derek says, and Stiles chokes out a harsh laugh.
"I've got a bullet and a broken window and a scorched house that say otherwise, dude."
And Derek glares at his pancakes and repeats, "No one is trying to kill you-"
"Funny way of showing it-"
"They're," Derek says, and Stiles is furious and betrayed and brokenhearted and losing his freaking mind, and he can't take Derek's locked fingers in his hands, so he takes his own. "They're trying to kill me."
Stiles blinks at him.
"What," Stiles says. For once, he's speechless.
"Fire," Derek says bitterly. "My family," he elaborates. "They. Nine people. Dead. My uncle got out. He, he was unconscious for a week, and then, and then-" He grits his teeth; a muscle jumps in his jaw. "I was sixteen."
"Oh my god," Stiles says, because, whoa, that explains so much. Why Derek never talks about his family. Why Derek barely talks, period. The paranoia. The nightmares.
Well, no, it doesn't really, because Derek gave Stiles the alphabet soup, but it's a long way from the actual story. But it's more than he's ever given Stiles before, so Stiles isn't scoffing.
"Who is it?" Stiles demands, taking Derek's hands in his own, running his long fingers over the jutting bone of Derek's wrist, the fierce jumping pulse."Why would anyone-"
"It doesn't matter," Derek says, and Stiles snaps, "Like hell it doesn't. If you think I'm just gonna let you run away to get murdered without me, you're a moron."
"You want to get murdered?" Derek asks incredulously.
"I don't want you to die alone!" Stiles shouts, realizes he's shouting, and tries again. "I don't want you to die at all," he says, quieter, but with no less emphasis. "Holy fuck, Derek, I love you. I've been in love with you for seven years. I don't know if you realize this, but I don't have that many sticking people in my life. I've got Scott and you, and if I lose you I won't get over it. I'll crash and burn, okay, I'll have a Britney meltdown without the comeback. If you get hurt because of me, man, if you get hurt at all-"
"I'm your bodyguard," Derek says weakly, looking somewhat bewildered. "Keeping you safe is my job."
Stiles glares at him, brushes his eye furiously with his wrist. "Fine," he says.
"Fine," Derek repeats, glaring at his bacon, and Stiles doesn't miss the way his shoulders slump slightly before stiffening again, the way his eyes go empty.
"Yeah," Stiles says, stabbing his knife violently into a long-cold pancake. "You're fired."
"I'll just- what?"
"You're fired," Stiles repeats, nudging a wiggly patch of egg yolk with his fork to unearth the mushroom below. "I'll get someone else to take a bullet for me. Someone I don't care about."
"Stiles-"
"You think I'd let Scott take a bullet for me? You think I'd've let my dad take a bullet for me?"
"It's my job," Derek says stubbornly.
"Not anymore," Stiles says, and stands to join Derek on his side of the table. "I love you, man. You can't get hurt for me," he says, and he takes Derek by the neck and kisses him, pulls away, says, "If you get hurt for me, I'll kill you."
"That sounds kind of counterproduct-" But then they're kissing again, and it's long past breakfast when Stiles loops his arm around Derek's back, pulls him close against his chest, and says, lips warm at his ex-bodyguard's ear, "Okay. Okay."
Derek half-turns to curl against him, and Stiles blinks furiously and tries to curb the small crooked grin growing on his lips. Everything is still a huge mess, and they're probably not safe, and Dad's house- but in this moment, he can't make himself care.
He feels Derek, his Derek, coming alive under his hands, and the whole world starting to right itself along with him. Dynamic equilibrium, Stiles thinks, and he lets out a long relieved breath and says, "Tell me everything."